Impossibilitee: March 2015

Tuesday 31 March 2015

S4 M31 & M32: The Home Stretch

So we're now into April. A clear run through now to the end of the season. The likelihood of Chelsea being crowned before the month is out. The (high) likelihood of 1, if not 2 clubs being relegated. FA Cup Semis. Happy days. The weather might improve and the whole thing becomes that bit more fun - for the neutral at any rate.

As ever, when too much time has passed since the last blog, I'm not going to rehash stuff that's been covered to death already. I'd just like to add my tuppence to Gerrardgate: Ha!

Glad to have got that out the way. England did pretty well on Friday night (as per the newspaper - obvs didn't watch) and didn't do as well vs Italy at the time of writing - these damned early match reports. Still - I reckon filing it by minute 35 beats even the most phoning-it-in Fleet St journo.

I'm writing this nice and early as I'm off for a bit of sunshine for the next 2 matchdays - so will post the predos now for both games. Can't promise individual reminders though, so the Impossibilifamilee will have to do its thing. Create a phone pyramid or something like in primary school.

'Nuff natter, Let's get statty:

Matchday 30:

This week, 20 people played

Most predicted result: Man City WIN (20/20)

Most disputed result: QPR vs Everton (6-5-9 split)

Highest odds: Steven Daniels (4186/1)

Lowest odds: Feneley (5130/1)

Average odds: 1907/1

Best predictors: Loads of you. See below (7/10)

Worst predictors: Steven Daniels & Tarek Najm (4/10)

Average score: 6.00/10

Best predicted result: Man City WIN (20/20)

Worst predicted results: Swansea, Crystal Palace and (incredibly) Man Utd WINS (1/20). Seriously....only 1 of us (loyal fan Richard Verber) thought Man Utd would get a win at Anfield. The fall from grace never ceases to amaze.

Goal-swing: That'd be the Zaha winner for Palace - 7 players were put out by that goal

Everyone's results:

The leaderboard, for those who have played >2/3 available weeks (21/30)

I tell you what - that gap at the top is narrowing. This is where all the drama is - maybe i should organise an auction for the TV rights for this game. I'm not greedy - I'd accept 0.5% of the value of the PL even though I feel this provides a better return of entertainment than that.

So, to the predictions for the next 2 matchdays:

Matchday 31:

Arsenal vs Liverpool

Everton vs Southampton

Leicester vs West Ham

Man Utd vs Aston Villa

Swansea vs Hull

WBA vs QPR

Chelsea vs Stoke

Burnley vs Spurs

Sunderland vs Newcastle

Crystal Palace vs Man City

Matchday 32:

Swansea vs Everton

Southampton vs Hull

Sunderland vs Crystal Palace

Spurs vs Aston Villa

WBA vs Leicester

West Ham vs Stoke

Burnley vs Arsenal

QPR vs Chelsea

Man Utd vs Man City

Liverpool vs Newcastle

Predos in the comments as per usual - or I'll be available on WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter WiFi permitting.

Good luck guys & try to keep the Easter eggs in single digits!

Thursday 19 March 2015

S4M30: Reeled in

Well then. Somehow, Chelsea managed to extend their lead on a weekend where the top 2 clubs both managed to fox us all. The Arsenal train rolled on with a defeat of a West Ham side already looking towards pre-season and their likely new manager. The Pulis Palace revival continued apace, consigning QPR to yet another defeat in their relentless romp towards relegation. Sunderland look to be joining them, getting spanked by Aston Villa inside 45 mins. The writing has long been on the wall for Gus Poyet there, but losing to Tim Sherwood was the last straw...understandably. Dick Advocaat - he of Rangers fame aaaaaaaages ago will try to avert near certain disaster. My final pick to go down, Leicester did well and got a point. Unfortunately, it was one of their easier fixtures to get 3 in....they are rock bottom. Pulis beat Pulis (emeritus) with a trademark early goal then defend showing, and Liverpool kept their run going with a(nother) Henderson winner.

Everton remarkably won a game after a Europa league match - is that even allowed? Although, it was only Newcastle, so to be expected. Man Utd finally clicked into gear, only 7 months late to beat a Spurs side that may just be starting to peter out. And so to the shock result, and a deserved Burnley win. They gave Man City problems at the Etihad and deservedly beat a flat City here. Disappointing how bad they've been since the turn of the year really - if they'd played well, we may have an exciting title race on.

Anywho - as some of you may have seen, I've been writing quite a lot this week...so I'm typed out for now.

Let's get statty:

This week, 20 people played

Most predicted result: Man City & Crystal Palace WINS (20/20)

Most disputed result: Leicester vs Hull (8-6-6 split)

Highest odds: Feneley's mum (40287/1) - good to see you've reverted back to normal!

Highest odds excluding Feneley's mum: Me (5996/1)

Lowest odds: Feneley (963/1) - this week sees a Feneley Family double

Average odds: 8153/1

Best predictor: Lawro & Yo Abbott (7/10)

Worst predictor: Richard Verber (3/10)

Average score: 4.7/10

Best predicted result: Crystal Palace WIN (20/20)

Worst predicted results: Burnley WIN & Chelsea vs Southampton DRAW (0/20)

Goal-swing: Dusan Tadic's equaliser at the bridge - 19 thought Chelsea would win....we all lost out to that penalty

Everyone's results:

The leaderboard, for those who have played >2/3 available weeks (20/29)

Gaon is being reeled in by the objective powers of maths - his lead is just 0.1 now....and Sam Ruback's doing the whole cycling slipstream thing looking to make a last minute dash for the line come May.

To this week's predos:

Man City vs WBA - MAN CITY

Aston Villa vs Swansea - ASTON VILLA

Newcastle vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Southampton vs Burnley - DRAW

Stoke vs Crystal Palace - STOKE

Spurs vs Leicester - SPURS

West Ham vs Sunderland - WEST HAM

Liverpool vs Man Utd - LIVERPOOL

Hull vs Chelsea - CHELSEA

QPR vs Everton - EVERTON

Total odds: 1092/1 (Paddypower)

Good luck guys

Friday 13 March 2015

S4M29: Printemps arrives

This blog/game/idea came about partly as an unscientific exercise in perception. I'm not a psychologist so there's no real structure to this, and it's very much anecdotal (any psychologists who want to write this up for publication as a pilot study...holler at me...the CV needs pimping) but it's an interesting second line of inquiry that's arisen.

The first, obvious hypothesis was that we are all really knowledgeable about football and therefore should be able to accurately predict results each in a field that we have 'expert' knowledge.

Lawro, and latterly other statistical models were used as 'controls' - either as experts or as subjective models who should take the short term form bias out of the equation. This all sounds a bit sciency - so for those who haven't followed - basically, the idea was to see if we predict better than computers. Sort of. Actually it's harder to express simply.

Regardless, that's all going swimmingly, and I'm looking forward to a football-free summer when I'm going to sit down with all the data from the last 4 years and try and analyse some trends, both personal and group - hopefully there'll be some interesting finds.

The second thing that's arrived - which is much less specific to Impossibilitee - is the perception of time. This is an age old thing, and I'm certainly not looking to channel my inner-Einstein, although on occasion, I too can pull funny faces with terrible hair. Essentially, the last 5 paragraphs have been a long run up to this:

Why are there more 2 week breaks between my blogs now!

Sure it's cup season, but it seems like more than ever. I've been too serious above and my coffee hasn't yet penetrated my thinking space in my head, so I'm going to regress to a footballling mean and blame it on FIFA. The ducks*.

There are 2 matchdays' stats to get through, so let's get statty:

Matchday 27:

This week, 19 people played

Most predicted result: Man Utd WIN (19/19)

Most disputed result: WBA vs Southampton (5-8-6 split)

Highest odds: Me (1601/1)

Lowest odds: Sam Ruback (160/1)

Average odds: 880/1

Best predictor: Euroclub Index, Feneley & Sam Ruback (5/8)

Worst predictor: Tarek (2/8)

Average score: 3.68/8

Best predicted result: Man Utd WIN (19/19)

Worst predicted result: Crystal Palace WIN(0/19)

Goal-swing: Coutinho's winner for Liverpool against Man City - screwed 9 people.

In hindsight, I should have included Spurs vs QPR too. Soz folks.

Everyone's results to follow in a single graph below

Matchday 28:

This week, 16 people played

Most predicted result: Man City WIN (16/16)

Most disputed result: Aston Villa vs WBA (5-2-9 split)

Highest odds: Josh Daniels (8527/1)

Lowest odds: Andrew Feneley (1060/1)

Average odds: 3325/1

Best predictor: Fink tank (9/10)

Worst predictor: WhoScored.Com (5/10)

Average score: 6.29/10

Best predicted result: Man City WIN (16/16)

Worst predicted result: Aston Villa WIN(5/16)

Goal-swing: Rodwell's equaliser for Sunderland vs Hull - screwed 10 people.

Everyone's results for both weeks:

Yeah I forgot ECI again. These people who don't leave their entire web history up for posterity....

The leaderboard, for those who have played >2/3 available weeks (19/28)

To this week's predos:

Crystal Palace vs QPR - CRYSTAL PALACE

Arsenal vs West Ham - ARSENAL

Leicester vs Hull - HULL

Sunderland vs Aston Villa - ASTON VILLA

WBA vs Stoke - DRAW

Burnley vs Man City - MAN CITY

Chelsea vs Southampton - CHELSEA

Everton vs Newcastle - DRAW

Man United vs Spurs - SPURS

Swansea vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL

Total odds: 5996/1 (Paddypower)

Good luck guys!

*This is a family blog. Literally.

Thursday 5 March 2015

FA Cup 3: Quarter Finals

As we enter March, it's time to start focussing on trophies. Chelsea picked up the first competitive trophy of the season on Sunday, and one numpty dumpty referred to it as "Cup Final Day". Whilst this may be technically true, I think we all know that it's a day with a cup final on it, and not 'Cup Final Day', which belongs to a beautiful old girl in May, without stupid 3 handled tankard things.

I think the shocks of the 4th round hit home, as most teams looked to ensure they were not the next to suffer a comedy banana skin. Blackburn vs Stoke arguably the largest shock, as the Championship is notoriously unpredictable and Derby have a promotion challenge on their hands. There's no shock in Bradford beating Sunderland at home!

Now the Quarter finals are here, with each team only 1 match away from Wembley, will we see any more interesting results? A favourite has to drop given the pairing of Man Utd vs Arsenal (warm balls much?)...so Liverpool are arguably in pole position.

Let's do the stats for last round:

11 people played - boo Tharshan & Joe
Most predicted results: Arsenal & Man Utd WINS (11/11)
Most disputed result: WBA vs West Ham (6-5 split)

Best predictor: David Dinkin 6/8
Worst predictors: Steven, Joe, Tarek & Brad (3/8)

Average score: 4/8

Everyone's score:

Sam Ruback's still out in front. Josh Gaon's probably got too much to do...needs perfect scores from here on out or there's a new name on the trophy*

*No Impossibilitee FA Cup game trophy exists. Maybe in future. If you want a trophy, win the league. Josh Gaon....er....

To the QF predos:

Liverpool vs Blackburn - LIVERPOOL

Bradford vs Reading - BRADFORD

Aston Villa vs WBA - WBA

Man Utd vs Arsenal - ARSENAL (I'm not gonna win anyway...)